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The great friendship (Vano Muradeli)

I went twice to Russia, the first in 1970, I stayed 45 days.
The second in 1971 for 30 days. I went almost every evening to the Bolshoi
or the Mali teatr...and I saw a sovietic opera not bad, I was impressed... I
remember the name: The great friendship by Vano Muradeli. He was a friend
of Stalin...Well....I don't like to talk politics.

I'm not sure he was a friend of Stalin. Yes, he was a fellow Georgian, but his opera The Great Friendship made Muradeli one of the victims of the 1948 Zhdanov purges. He was only restored to favour after Stalin's death 5 years later. In the old Soviet Union the arts were almost always inseparable from politics. Stalin's disapproval of The Great Friendship was caused by Muradeli incorporating freshly-composed an example of a Caucasus Lezghinka dance instead of using a traditional one that Stalin would have recognised from childhood. What a heinous crime!

You are right, Delicious...

I said that because I read it somewhere a bit fast...

He got the Stalin prize in 1948 just before his opera the great friendship...His opera wasn't formalist but Stalin, a difficult guy didn't like it...It wasn't very popular nor folkloric...Even the Bolshoi blame him...

I don't know why...I made a mistake and I thank you for your appropiate correction:

I meant to say the feeling/mood of the music in the clip came to me as "very Russian", like as if the composer was wanting to express something "very Russian" in its emotions. That it was a "powerful"/sentimental piece of Russian music. I didn't understand the words but I sensed it was emotionally attached to Russia.

Harpsi

[PHP]I meant to say the feeling/mood of the music in the clip came to me as "very Russian", like as if the composer was wanting to express something "very Russian" in its emotions. That it was a "powerful"/sentimental piece of Russian music. I didn't understand the words but I sensed it was emotionally attached to Russia. [/PHP]

You are very right, Harpsi, but many people were against him because he also composed a bit more complicated music, he thought that Stalin liked hime, they were from the same village, but Stalin liked nobody...

Nowadays is difficult or impossible to get his music. The guy was very communist indeed.